‘Oblivion’ Spoilers Discussion

Published 2 years ago
by
Ben Kendrick
, Updated May 12th, 2013 at 7:26 am,

While our readers are already talking about this movie in the comments section of our Oblivion review, this is the place where you can discussOblivion spoilers without concerns about ruining the movie for people who haven’t seen it yet.

If you’re posting comments here, assume that anyone in the conversation has seen the movie – if you haven’t seen the movie, we would recommend you don’t read the comments here until you have.

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dongo 1 year ago

I liked the movie overall, but some plot holes nagged me.

How did the skavs know how to recall the odyssey? They should have spent a little more time explaining the resistance and how they learned about Jack’s history.

The tet scene sucked. Too much like ID4, and someone nailed it when they said it was a HAL look alike.

Was jack 52 the “real” Jack? or are 1000 other jacks going to be showing up at the lake house?

morgan freeman’s character sid he was in the military when the invasion happened… tom cruises character was a famous astronaut. the invasion was carried out by tom cruises clones… any one old enough to remember the attack would know who he is

Plot and twists were somewhat predictable, but mainly because I watch to many of these. My friends never saw any of it coming.

Jack dodging lightning…what a joke.

As the ending kept going, I grew more and more dissatisfied. I felt that Jack and Julia dying together in the Tet to save the rest of humanity was a perfect way to tie it up with out it being cheesy and all “perfectly happy ending”. Then I see that Morgan Freeman is in the pod, and I think, “Okay. That works, a welcome act of sacrificial love.” Then they show Julia with their supposed child, from one night of sex, that she happened to deliver on her own. I mean seriously, did she just rip the umbilical cord in two with her bare hands?

And then Jack 52 showing up, somehow getting the memories of 49′s secret mountain house. Meanwhile all the other Jacks and Victorias are freaking out since they think their only link to humanity has been destroyed. The Victorias probably jumped off the Balcony of the house as soon as she realized the Tet was blown.

Also, if the Tet is that big, what kind of Gravitational effects is it having on earth?

Okay, I’m done ranting, and I did find my self entertained, so I’m not really upset.

Doza: No, Jack 52 didn’t have Jack 49 49′s memories, that’s why it took him 3 years to find Julia (according to what he says). The Tet exploding an d it’s Gravitational effects is a little bit of nit-picking specially for just a movie.

Women are perfectly capable of giving birth all by themselves with no help from anyone, although I doubt it’s much fun. And it’s no stretch at all to get pregnant after one encounter. Quite common. And I’m sure there was a knife or a sharp rock or something in the cabin that could have been used to cut the umbilical cord after the placenta was expelled. Or she could have just done like the animals do and bitten through it with her teeth.

I haven’t seen this glitch posted and if it can be explained, please someone do. Julia won’t say anything until she has the flight recorder from the Odyssey, so they go back to the crash site to get it. Then Jack listens to the recording only as he is flying to the Tet in the bubble plane. He begins remembering how the Odyssey was diverted to the Tet from its original mission to explore Titan. When he realizes the danger the Tet presents, he jettisons the sleep chamber which is supposed to then return to or orbit Earth. It is the sleep chamber which is recalled by the Scavs,

I totally agree and am searching to see if I missed something. I can’t seem to find anywhere else where someone points out this error of the black box. It doesn’t make sense and that is kind of a major plot hole to overlook…

It’s easily explainable. The ship was designed to separate therefore the cockpit voice recorder could have been designed with that in mind, programmed to pick up the rest of the flight over the radio. That’s just my take on it but it makes sense. Just because it wasn’t spelled out in the movie doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

As a plot device for triggering the flashback it worked beautifully. I assume the film makers just didn’t want to slow down the story by spelling out the details of how it worked…. and in my opinion they made the right choice.

Two recorders are most likely. Since the recording ended a few moments after the two separated. So the recorders shared a low power radio link and the recorder in the sleep pod lost the command module.

I could live with all the plot holes mentioned. Except for one: the fact that we dont know, at least i cant understand, if theres more Jacks on Earth. Only tech 49 and 52 existed at the time? What happend to 50 and 51? If they even existed.

That’s what you’re hung up on? Really? All the ridiculous nonsense in that absurd film and you’re stuck on “how many jacks are there?”

Yes. There are thousands of jacks all over the world. If there were only two then Tet wouldn’t need to have a clone farm of thousands of him. They each have small districts and are told that they can’t leave because of radiation. But really they can’t leave because they’ll run into their clones and the cover will be blown. 49s district was obviously NYC.

Okay Brian,
Not to be “hung up” but obviously 49 had New York with relative proximity to the ocean to keep an eye on the water guzzlers…so what is 52 doing settled out in the desert? Do the aliens need sand too?!

Another thing (and I have several), so Morgan is stowaway in the stasis pod, where did they get the extra one for Julia?

When 49 is walking around the wreckage there was an empty stasis pod that presumably was one of the two pods not used by Victoria or Jack. So hopefully that clears up one question in this mess.

I was wondering if the numbers mean anything that the techs have? I mean beyond the fact that Jack is a double digit number despite being amongst thousands of other techs (USA is most important even for the Tet it seems). I was thinking it could have something to do with the Super Bowl that’s constantly mentioned. 2017 would have been Super Bowl LI which is 51. Perhaps Tech 52 (the next Super Bowl number) symbolically stands for being the one who brings human culture back exemplified by the greatest if man’s creation football?

They talk about the game twice so thought it had some purpose. Probably just being dumb…Keep ranting everybody.

At least one of the pods was empty at the time Jack did the initial inspection of the crash site. There woul have been no need for the drone to destroy that one. They could have gone back and fetched it. What I don’t understand was the need to execute trickery on Julia at all. Why put her to sleep with her thinking she was going to die?

Yup, I did. It was weird. Was she brain dead during the cloning process? Remember when Beech said that out of all the Jacks he saw, #49 seemed have a soul or remember his previous life more. I wonder if maybe Vica was more under the Tet’s control and she didn’t have all those memories like him, or at least not all of them. Maybe she was a puppet? Jack’s eye weren’t dilated bc he seemed to be in more control of himself. I guess lol. They should’ve gave us a clue of Vica’s eyes being like that.

Yeah. I kept waiting for there to be a reason because even when it was bright they were overly dilated. Either it was just a choice to be spooky… the actress has messed up eyes… or there was a character reason.

My shot in the dark reason is that it’s a reference to F451. There was a lot in the story that seemed to be barrowed from a bunch of other stories, F451 among them. And Millie’s character in F451 is always drugged. Now I just pulled that out of my ass, because there is NO reference to her eyes in the movie that I heard. But anyway…

I thought about that too, but they did a close up on that yellow drink that Victoria was always drinking. So my theory is that what was keeping her complacent; and that she was truly in love with Jack. As soon in the shot where she looks at him while taking a picture of the both of them.

I’m surprised at all the nitpicks. I went in to this movie being able to suspend disbelief but apparently I was one of the few.

There were a few plot holes but please, someone go ahead and name a scifi that has no plot holes. I mean come on, have the proper expectation.

Sure they could have explained this or that, but the movie is already 2 hours long. Adding more story would either make the movie to long or screw up the great pacing. I give decent credit for the story but where this movie REALLY shines is in the presentation. A well-lit, serious scifi movie is extremely rare and Oblivion fit the niche perfectly.

Sure, the flight recorder should have cut off when the pods separated. Sure, the other Victoria’s are probably all committing ritual suicide after the credits rolled. Sure, blah blah blah…

The movie was great FOR WHAT IT IS.

Also kudos to whoever edited the trailers. I went in thinking I knew the whole movie already, but not even close. That was a nice change.

I agree wholeheartedly. I enjoyed the movie. Often during scifi movies I walk away and I know I have missed things and then say “oh, now I get it?” But I don’t let the things I missed detract from my enjoyment of the movie. I was very happy the movie did not end before showing us how Jack and Victoria were captured and how the other astronauts ended up in orbit. That sealed the movie nicely – for me.

I’m surprised at all the nitpicks. I went in to this movie being able to suspend disbelief but apparently I was one of the few.

There were a few plot holes but please, someone go ahead and name a scifi that has no plot holes. I mean come on, have the proper expectation.

Sure they could have explained this or that, but the movie is already 2 hours long. Adding more story would either make the movie to long or screw up the great pacing. I give decent credit for the story but where this movie REALLY shines is in the presentation. A well-lit, serious scifi movie is extremely rare and Oblivion fit the niche perfectly.

Sure, the flight recorder should have cut off when the pods separated. Sure, the other Victoria’s are probably all committing ritual suicide after the credits rolled. Sure, blah blah blah…

The movie was great FOR WHAT IT IS.

Also kudos to whoever edited the trailers. I went in thinking I knew the whole movie already, but not even close. That was a nice change.

Oh they aren’t nitpicks. the movie made no sense from start to finish. But you’re right, I can suspend disbelief for a thing or two. This one just kept piling on absurdities until he’s dodging lightning.

And you’re right, Krasinsky makes amazing worlds. His design is beautiful. I love the nod back to our childhood when they actually built props and sets and engineered props to be functional and creative. that part was wonderful.

But the main problem with this (and tron) is that he can’t tell a story. His shots are confusing. His dialogue is entirely expositional. His holes are glaring. And he can’t focus his ideas into a thread that an audience can follow. I mean, he’s bad at it. A singular example being the death of Victoria…

We have previously seen a bullet bounce of Jack’s chest suit. JUMP TO: Drone attacking Victoria.
Shot of Victoria at the window. Shot of Drone zeroing in. Shot of Jack standing behind her. Drone looks at the two in a line. Close of Drone gun firing. Close up of Jack’s chest reflecting something and Jack flying back to the ground.

We never see Victoria get shot. we never see her fall. we never see her eyes close, or her arm hit the ground, or her body laying there. Nothing. We see drone fire, jack fall. In the langugae of cinematography that means jack has been shot. But he hasn’t, she has… but you as an audience member have to figure that out because krasinsky has no idea how to tell a story with his camera. He’s a designer. the move was full of that garbage. Non linear action shots. close ups of facial expressions that didn’t make any sense. Victoria 52′s character just disappears.

Plenty of movies don’t show evey single detail of every single event, especially violent events. lt can actually be a more effective form of storytelling. And, do we really need to see her literally die on screen, reacting to the shot, falling, and closing her eyes?

In any case, it took all of a couple seconds to learn Victoria’s fate.

No it’s not about seeing it happen, it’s about using the camera to clarify what happened. You don’t have to show her die, just fall, or her eyes widen, or her hand go limp… As it was they show gun shot, jack fall. That tells the viewer theater the action (gun shot) and reaction (jack) are directly related. It’s really basic visual storytelling. It’s unnecessary confusion and interferes with whatever other story is being told. And krasinsky does it all through the movie.

When a drone kills someone, they appear to disintegrate (why? I don’t know) so the scene you mention looked to me like she died/disintegrated and Jack was thrown back by the force of the blast, not shot.

I guessed V was dead when I didn’t see her again but you don’t actually see any indication that she had been shot at all. We only see Jack getting hit and his suit miraculously deflecting the shot. That seems to be a mistake to my mind. I don’t think they made any others on this level.

I don’t understand what you’re asking? The original jack is dead. he died 60 years ago when the Tet pulled him and victoria into it. It took them in and cloned them. The clones of Jack were set out on the earth in a huge clone army to take everyone out.

There is no original Jack. Jack 49, the hero of the movie, is the one that blows up the tet. Jack 52 is the one that has been clued into the clone thing by running into 49 and escaping, and he then searches (for inexplicable reasons) until he finds Julia at the end of the movie with the Scavs.

Jack 52 searching for Julia is not really inexplicable is it? I wouldn’t expect that he is that much different than Jack 49. Curious, beset with the same memory fragments, etc. Further, he has now met his clone, so would likely be searching for something.

And–given that the Scavs must’ve played a role in getting Julia’s pod to the lake house and, so, knew where it was; and the fact that it’s entirely reasonable that the scavaging Scavs would’ve encountered the searching 52–it seems even likely that 52 would have ended up at the lake house.

There is no hole here. Jack 52 saw Julia when he had the standoff with Jack 49. And he had the flashbacks when he saw her, indicating that the clones all retain some memories of the original Jack. Once those flashbacks started nagging 52, he set out to find her. Took him 3 years.

Exactly. As I mentioned, he had the same memory fragments. But Eric clarified further by mentioning specifically 52′s flashback that was shown upon seeing Julia.

Brian, as for why it took 3 years for the Scavs to find the lakehouse, it may not have. It may have just been that it took 52 that long to find the Scavs who then led him to the lakehouse.

If I am not recalling something at the end that specifically said it took the Scavs that long, then I stand corrected. But that would be plausible too. It was only my assumption that the Scavs would have played a role in depositing Julia at the lakehouse and knew where it was.

I was all excited because I thought 49 had swapped his jacket with 52. Meaning it was ‘our’ Jack in the final scene. They didn’t though. I’m guessing it wouldn’t have made any sense if that had happened.

I don’t think so, becuase if 49 had used 52′s jacket, surely that’s the same jacket he wore when he sacrifices himself by destroying the Tet. That must made 52 waering 49 jacket in the end, but he’s not right? Unless, Jack 52 wearing the 49 jacket from swapping is the one who sacrifed himself by destroying the Tet (which is impossible, because he didn’t know much information just like Jack 49), that will make the ending Jack 49 wearing 52 jacket. But again its impossible. Although its a good idea, because its good that Vicka 52 did’nt notice Jack’s 49 outfit printed 49 instead of 52? Hahaha.

When 49 is walking around the wreckage there was an empty stasis pod that presumably was one of the two pods not used by Victoria or Jack. So hopefully that clears up one question in this mess.

I was wondering if the numbers mean anything that the techs have? I mean beyond the fact that Jack is a double digit number despite being amongst thousands of other techs (USA is most important even for the Tet it seems). I was thinking it could have something to do with the Super Bowl that’s constantly mentioned. 2017 would have been Super Bowl LI which is 51. Perhaps Tech 52 (the next Super Bowl number) symbolically stands for being the one who brings human culture back exemplified by the greatest if man’s creation football?

They talk about the game twice so thought it had some purpose. Probably just being dumb…Keep ranting everybody.

Ok, that’s a fair enough explanation for the stasis things. i wasn’t too hung up on that, i just figured maybe he had one laying around for some reason. I mean they raided MoMa to keep the art safe so they obviously had stored some stuff away somewhere.

The numbers? I’m sure that krazinsky has some high minded idea behind the significance of the numbers, but in terms of story, I think the numbers were just assigned to ditricts. He’s the Tech in District 49. Tech 49. Makes sense that 52 would share a border depending on how Tet assigns them geographically.

Can anyone explain me why in the end of the movie, The TET/robot or whatever it is, let jack and “julia” to come on aboard? I didn’t understand why in the first place the alien mothership needed to bring jack and julia inside ?

The robot/animal inside of the tet asked jack to tell the truth in 5 seconds or less and jack answered something like “I don’t want our race to die, I want us to live on” and the guns were called off. I’m assuming that the thing inside the “tet” understood “our race” as what it was, instead of what the humans were. Obviously that may be reaching but I agree with you on that one.

I personally feel like this movie is like 7.5 out of 10. Solid movie for now but not that great, I wasn’t disappointed either. Made for an ok saturday night.

Yeah… but why does the ship pull them in in the first place? It’s just going to kill them anyway. What’s the purpose of bringing it in to its core and blowing it’s cover? I mean at that point, Sally is to think that Jack is still unaware that he is a clone and she is an alien, so why bring him into the clone harvesting room with the central tetrahedron talking thing? What’s the purpose of that?

And if there is no purpose and it is just to conveniently wrap up the story, then ok… why threaten him with the drones in the first place? All you do is introduce the idea of killing him to the audience only to let him live for inexplicable reasons.

My understanding was that it wasn’t 49 that “Sally” wanted, but Julia. Sally decided that Julia and Jack could make a more effective team than Jack and Victoria, so wanted to begin cloning Julia.

Now, you might ask “then why not kill them when it’s discovered that it’s Beech and not Julia in the pod?”

Well, Sally seemed to be naturally curious and “enjoyed” the banter, learned from it, or both.

And, remember, Sally had no way of knowing that there was a bomb on board and therefore Tet was in danger. With her army of drones floating around, she clearly believed there was nothing to worry about.

I agree. I think that for the prior few decades, Sally has been having recurring issues with her Jacks having doubt and being too curious. That may be why the missions were 5 years–any longer and things would go bad and she would need to recall them, kill them, and send a new pair.

When Jack said “we are a more effective team” (or something to that affect) in response to Sally’s order to tell the truth, She realized that by pairing the next Jack with a clone of Julia, it could solve the problem and the two would be a harmonious pair that would carry our their mission (and help destroy the remaining humans) without further problems.

Morgan F. pulled down the sleeper capsule because he wanted its explosive fuel. That was pretty clear from the film. He didn’t care about the people on board. I’m not sure why he waited so long, but maybe it took them that long to figure out how to get it to reenter.

Well “pretty clear” is pushing it since I’ve asked that question to everyone so far, including everyone i saw it with and no one else picked up on it. Was that buried in the 90 minutes of exposition somewhere? And what does he want with the “explosive fuel”? Does it serve a purpose in attacking the ship?

The film was not only a jumbled mess of unexplained stuff, but it was full of exposition explaining unnecessary stuff. And aside from the dialogue, Krasinsky can’t tell a story. It has a bunch of misleading shots and cuts that don’t make any sense other than to make the action more confusing. It’s a mess. he needs to be an art director and hire a simple TV directot to explain to him how to use the camera to tell the story.

“Pretty clear” is not pushing it. Morgan Freeman said we have a “gift from NASA.” The fuel cells in the sleeper pod are this gift. He shows Jack the fuels cells. He then installs the cells into the drone, and asks Harper to reprogram the drone so they can use the cells as bombs. For better or for worse, there are a decent amount of plot holes in this film. This is just not one of them.

The sleeper pods were unrelated. The fuel cells came from downed drones. The reactor core came from the space ship sleep module. It was not the sleep pods they wanted, but the space ship’s primary power source.

There was a quick cut away at the crash scene (I think it was when they went back to get the flight recorder) where Jack looks at the reactor core module with the reactor gone. It does not register on him, but it is meant to plant a seed for the audience, foreshadowing the action to come. Heavy handed foreshadowing, but foreshadowing none the less.

It was absolutely clear that the Scavs brought Odessey down because they wanted its reactor core. Morgan Freeman had a line or two that state that explicitly. It’s also clear he had no idea that “Julia” (as someone significant to Jack) was on board. He asked Jack why he defende Julia against the drones

So what was the point of the plutonium in the water reactor? That’s where I thought it came from. And the purple fuel cells were already stuck inside the other drones. He says he called down the NASA ship that’s been up there 60 years to get the fuel cells that he already has? And why’d he wait 60 years to get his gift? That’s even more confusing. A movie where you need to be told everything that’s happening is probably a better book.

Well, it did start as a book and was made into a movie. Sometimes, exposition is just required to tell parts of the story. Ironically enough, Morgan Freeman has been a narrator in many movies, including the masterful Shawshank Redemption. It doesn’t get much more expositive than narration, but it certainly doesn’t mean the movie is bad.

Could the director have used less exposition to tell the story? Maybe. But it’s certainly arguable and I, for one, was never bothered by it. Maybe I was too wrapped up in the “what if” aspects of the movie and the broader themes.

Actually m freeman states they were combining the fuel cells from the drones with the reactor from the crashed odyssey to make a nuke, if you are so worried about plot holes and such maybe you should take a notepad with you

i think u hated the movie so much u missed the anwsers to some of your questions. jack and the girl were let in because he was asked to bring the survivor up. the fuel cells were to blow up the tet. i think jack responded to sally’s question was his saying that the only way humanity could survive is to surcome to the tet… i think the tet thought jack was giving up

Well if its in the script in one line then it’s not about using your brain. It’s about listening to every word of exposition. And that’s a pretty boring movie experience. It “took decades” to crack NASAs coordinate codes? Ugh.

Why take the energy to create an army of Jacks to conquer earth when you can use those drone units which are killing machines instead? How many bullets does it take to kill a drone? And how many for a Jack? Why create an army that will ultimately need shelter warmth and food–for tens of thousands–and the last I knew humans beaten back by nuclear weapons are a poor choice. Drones are the way to go. Sure you can say that the aliens outfitted the Jack army with mechanized ships and armament but that would just presume that they (the aliens) had their head up their ass when they decided to go with a fully supported HUMAN army instead of a super smart harder-than-hell, turnkey drone pod…

Okay science fiction is like no other category when it comes to “suspending disbelief,” we are asked to believe in worlds and events that have not happened. The category however is aptly coined with science. For one to believe in the storyline it has to be based in a the realm of plausibility–that logic and linear thought are satisfied consciously and unconsciously. Good scif-fi leads you to a miraculous epiphany at the conclusion like Blade Runner or 2001. On the other hand Movies “masquerading” as sci-fi leave you with “nit-picking” questions of logic and feasibility–and overall unsatifed feeling–I still get angry from my viewing of Independance Day…
Don’t get me wrong Oblivion is no Independance Day, At least in Oblivion a drunk scientist didn’t figure out how to control an alien spacecraft with his laptop and fly it into the mother ship and…oh sorry ranting again

I imagined that this “Tet” was one of many “scavenger” type machines the aliens used to rape planets for resources and power. Since each planet is different it would make sense to clone and program existing life forms that are already suited for that planets environment and use them to wipe out the their own kind. Very efficient. Yes they have to eat , etc. but considering Jack had to repair drones on a regular basis, human clones would be a less “costly” form for “troops”.

I predict this movie will make more money than Prometheus, the last big budget sci fi flick. As for plot holes, I’m sure some are intentional as solving them takes too much time, the audience can fill it in themselves with imagination.

Is it possible that the escape pod that the 5 crew members were in took about 60-70 years to return to earth from wherever they were in the solar system when Cruise released them?

The movie doesnt tell us where the crew meets up with the Tet. Perhaps it was at Titan, which orbits Saturn. So when Cruise releases the 5 crew members that are in stasis, it takes that long for them to make the return trip to earth. Is that possible? Or am I forgetting something that says otherwise in the movie?

I cannot remember whether or not the movie tells WHEN Freeman starts that homing beacon or not, whether it was years ago, or very recently. But in either case, could Freeman have been aware of the approximate time the stasis pod would take to return to earth?

I think it’s a combination between both of those. Cruise did say the escape pod would orbit the earth. They also say it took decades to crack the GPS codes. Maybe the pod took 60 years to return to earth, meanwhile, the scavs are cracking the code so when they send the contact signal, the pod is already nearby

So many people seem to be going over every detail of the movie, looking for holes. Most of these “holes” are either minor or easily explainable. But the point of a movie is not to explain every tedious detail. Reminds me of my son who was shocked to learn that stormtroopers in Star Wars eat, poop and brush their teeth. “When?”, he asked, because he’d never seen it. I had to explain to him that they can’t show every detail because the movie would be boring and too long,

The movie does work in the bigger picture and many of the details do plausibly support the outcome from a story perspective. Of course some of the action like dodging lightning is unrealistic, but since when do we expect movie action to be realistic? It’s like counting bullets while watching a western.

I found the premise and story fascinating. Beyond that, people seem to be missing out on broader themes like what makes us who we are? Is our reality defined by what information we are given (or not given)? Are we dutifully going about our lives without purpose (or serving a purpose that is other than what is “suggested”? And, of course, the biggest question is just “what if?”

It’s just a shame that so many miss out on an enjoyable, thought-provoking movie experience because the director didn’t choose to go to great lengths to tediously explain, for instance, “what happened to the other Jacks”.

There is a really obvious question that nobody has answered. Why did TET/Sally want Julia and Jack to come upto and into the alien scaceship? I remember when Victoria got killed by the hidden drone in her flat after she tells TET/Sally that “We are no longer an effective team”, at this point the drone is destroyed by Julia and then TET/Sally asks Jack to bring Julia up to be “debriefed”. Why does Sally/TET want them both to come up? I wondered if Sally/TET wanted Julia to be the new female clone to replace all the Victoria’s as it would fit in better with Jacks memory flashbacks.

Agreed. I believe that Sally has had ongoing problems with all the Jacks having dreams and going off mission. Who knows how many had to be prematurely killed and replaced in order to keep things running smoothly. The opportunity to use Julia to create a “more effective team” solves the problem for Sally and is worth the risk to bring Jack and Julia into the center of the TET.

I loved this movie and most of these so-called plot holes can be explained away easily. Maybe the movie just held my attention more because I was enjoying it.

I did however come up with a legitimate plot hole that doesn’t seem to have been adressed. Why were drones and parts in such short supply? Near the end the tet was shown to be full of drones… It seemed to me like most of them could have been used to supplement the ones patrolling Earth. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss anything but did anyone else see a reason for this?

I don’t think that they were really in short supply, I just think that they maybe had reliability issues or they were getting damaged by the Scavs (Humans) and that the Jacks were useful in making sure that they were recovered/fixed and that a minimum were being lost and or getting captured by the Scavs (Humans).

Good comments by everyone. One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned more about is Sally. Isn’t she supposed to be dead as with everyone on earth when the aliens attacked it? If so, is the Tet using her image to make it look as if she’s still alive? Did I miss something here?

Great movie…. I was looking at everyone’s comments on here and to clear up some “holes” when we see jack in the Odyssey for the first time & the crew they are the originals humans jack 49 & 52 were the two clones we see out of the 1,000 copys of jacks, plus the two Victorias..

as for Sally I think that the TET copied her bc she is familiar to original Jack as they didn’t want the “clones” to realize they aren’t the real jack bc when they mind wiped them they probably didn’t know how long it would work for.. bc the mission was to kill the remaining humans on earth.

To answer the question why TET/Sally wanted Julia and Jack to come up to the alien spacecraft was to clone Julia to make them a better team then Victoria…

what else oh yeah I think there were two flight recorders in the Odyssey when jack separated the ship before going into the TET bc many aircrafts these days are built to have two incase anything happens to the first one…

So to recap The original jack is dead he died 60 years ago when the Tet pulled him & victoria into the ship. It took them in & cloned them. The clones of Jack were set out on the earth in a huge clone army to take everyone out but some humans survived…

So what I got from the movie that was not disccused. The TET lied to Jack.. The humans didn’t win the war.. the TET won the war.. The last of the humans are on earth and trying to still fight the TET.. All the clone stuff is fine and the drones is fine.

The only thing that confuses me.. Was the TET just an AI? Was there any organic life? if not, who created the TET? Probably very little is known about TET by humans since the only humans to encouter them were killed and cloned and memories wiped.

And why did the TET blow up the moon? Easiest way to wipe out most of the humans?

What is the Tet, is it AI, blah blah blah, I don’t know. I think that’s what we’re to believe though, yeah.

And blowing up the moon to kill the humans, yeah you’re right on that too. Blow up the moon and it throws off the earths gravitational balance. That means geological havoc. Havoc that seems to have come to a comfortable standstill 60 years later, but i think they say that the earthquakes and what not killed a ton of people, wiped out the cities, destroyed human achievement and what not.

Excellant movie thinking mans scifi for sure. Not many plot holes at all actually Brian seems to hav it out for cruise however this movie is and will be a classic in the same genre of “Forbidden Planet”. This movie is so complex on so many levels. Effective team is female talk for, Are you having sex and is everything going well?. This is always asked when jack is not around but the female interaction and perception by the AI is clear. This is how Jack is controlled and control is lost when he finds his real wife. The first officer obvioulsy had feelings for Jack before even though he was married and she appeared to know who the woman was as she probably had been jealous before. Her heart was clearly broken and she shed tears and informed the AI “we are no longer an effective team”. AI probably saw this as an opportunity to have a more “efffective team” which I would agree with.

Jack is a clone of a human that is fully developed with strong feelings in the subconcious which the AI did not master or anticiapte fully and cloned in all of the other “Jacks”. THis had clearly been a problem before as the first officer often told jack not to ask the questions about going down to the surface again this was another glitch in personality that the AI could not solve and ALL the Jacks made the same mistakes. Thus the problem with cloning a fully developed human being and not having all the blueprints, you make the same fatal mistakes a million times in all million jacks.

Interestingly clear to me is that the monter computer is an exact replica of the Viacom symbol. This is the company that cruise used to work for and it is a multiheaded media monster encompassing many companies. Sally could easily be Summner trade in trhe New Engalnd accent for a southern one. AS far as the Tet being God and saying I am your God I think there maybe some God Complex issues with some of our Billionaires, the cruise response to Sally is quite approppriate and I think you could easily project that response to Viacom and their god complex with cruise as well. Cruise certainly has won as he is one of the few real leading men left in hollywood as many others are simply not believable or capable save a few notables like Damon, Affleck, Daylewis, Depp, Denzel, Crow etc.
The symbol of viacom matching the symbol of the Tet space ship and teraforming ships taking the sea water, the life of the planet, is just too rich not to notice and aknowledge.
The arranged marrriage and proper behavior at all times does seem a bit
Hollywood all jack realy had left to do was to jump on a couch and receive feigned outrage and the symbolism would be complete.

A lot of the points brought up in the discussion are awesome and mind-boggling. I think someone brought this up but it never got answered and it’s been plaguing my mind.

What’s up with Vica/Vicoria’s permanently dilated eyes? It was definitely not explained but I know a critic brought it up. He said that it was very similar to Quorra’s eyes from Tron: Legacy. Maybe it’s an homage? I found it weird bc When Breech was talking about how Jack #49 was diffeent and had a soul of some sort, I was thinking that Jack didn’t have dilated pupils bc he had a soul and he wasn’t mindless like the clones from before. But what about Vica? She never questioned anything and always did everything by the book. In essence did she have a soul? When they cloned her, was she brain dead or dead inside? I know she wasn’t an alien but was her programming on point? Is that how everyone else would look like if they were a mind less clone?

It’s weird but was there some philosophical meaning behind her eyes being that way?

Also about the numerous Jack clones killing people and starting the war. I was thinking that maybe the aliens used him to draw out people bc they thought he was a good guy and it was a ploy to lure people out? If u just use the drones they wouldn’t have been unsuccessful in killing everyone bc people would be hiding deep underground like the scavengers. Although seeing a whole bunch of Jacks would’ve scared the human populace into not trusting him and running away.

And what about survivors in other sections, what’s the probability that there were other people who survived the initial attacks? Would they mistrust Jack bc they renembered him killing people from the beginning? I would’ve loved to see that.

In general, I liked the movie. It did not have the aspiration to deep ideas that Prometheus had, so it was not disappointing when those ideas were so poorly executed. There were some interesting ideas regarding memory and identity, in that Jack’s love for his wife was so great that it could not be wiped away, and it became part of his make up even through the cloning process.

What bugged me though, right out there at the beginning, is the notion that blowing up the moon would somehow cause earthquakes. This is an absolutely silly idea. And for that matter, they did not blow up the moon. It is still there, in the night sky, just fragmented a bit. A loose collection of moon bits is going to exert about the same influence as the moon itself.

Oh well, I still liked it. That one bit was the only place where my willing suspension of disbelief was taken a bit too far.

Can someone explain how the movie started? How did the attack first start? And how did Jack and his co-pilot realize something was wrong on their original flight (the one where they let the escape pod go). There was a big disruption in the theatre in the beginning so we missed the first bit.

Ok guys, thanks for all the explanations and answers about the movie! I’ve got some questions for you. Could you help me making it clear?

1) What should have happened with the other hundreds of Victorias when TET was exploded? Since there were a lot of Jacks around the world, it may be probably that there were hundreds of Vics too.

2) How many water reactors do you think TET have sent to the earth? We saw some units in NYC’s coast. Is it possible to have more of it around the world?

3) When the first army of Jacks were sent to the earth, how could him attack humans? We know that TET sent them before the drones, but it’s not very clear why did he attacked his own species. Were the drones set to attack animals too?

4) In the stadium scene, he remembers the Superbowl’s match of 2017. Maybe all Jacks over the world had it? Or just that couple had that regards? Why wasn’t it erased from him?

5) Why Victoria wasn’t curious like him? She had no regards about her past, and she was in the same ship as Jack. Was the brainwashing more successfully made on her than him? Or just personality?

6) When Jack 49 meets Victoria’s 52 in the tower, he seems to be very dirty and tired. Also he had 49 in his cover, however she haven’t asked him what happened and why he was wearing a 49′s jacket. Any explanation?

7) How could TET explode the moon? I don’t think it had a BIG weapon capable to do that. Maybe it was made by the drones?

And finally, 7) Who have built these towers (home) of Jack and Victoria in the earth?

I think you’ll had a lot of guesses and thoughts with these questions, and thanks for reading everything! Hope you can answer it guys! See ya!

1) There were the name number of Jacks and Victorias on earth. They were a team.m We have no idea how many there actually are.

2) No idea. But with TET down, the drones are then down, and presumably the reactors would also fail, since these were all controlled by the TET

3) Memory wipe? This is part of the willing suspension of disbelief required for fiction.

4) He said he read about it. He could have found some book or newspaper and read about it.

5) She was clearly in love with him, even back to the mission days. That is why the wife was so freaked out by her being by Jack’s side as a couple. Since she was with the person she wanted to be with, she was happier in the scenario. Her brain was not trying to rebel against the constructed reality.

6) Plot hole? She isn’t curious? She does not look that colsely at him? The camera focuses in on the number to move the story along for the audience. But the uniforms are the same. She maybe never looked closely at it. Since he was doing drone maintenance, me was dirty from the work.

7) It just blew it apart a bit. We have no idea what weapons are on the TET itself. Since it wants the resources on the Earth, it is not going to destroy the Earth, so it would not use its weapons on the Earth itself.

7) Drones, slaves on the TET, clones left over after the war, Survivors after the war captured as prisoners? Who built the drones, the water reactors? Clearly, the TET has some manufacturing capabilities. Since the towers were identical, they were probably produced on the TET en mass and brought to the Earth. OR they were made on Earth in factories between the time of the war and the time of the movie.